I spend a large amount of time ruminating over how I started out as a “left-wing” person but now I’m apparently “right-wing.” Having grown up in a world where “right-wing” was a genuinely frightening term, I still struggle to describe my worldview in that way. But then again, I have come to loathe the modern left — in the US, the UK and Ireland. So I must be “right-wing”? Right??
But what if the terms “left and “right” were totally meaningless — or worse, misleading?
I am going to try a little exercise here. I’m going to list a series of quotes but not say who said them. Then you, dear reader, can decide. Do they fall more on the side of “left,” as we typically understand it — pro-worker, pro justice, pro freedom from oppression? Or do they fall more on the “right” — endorsing state control, racial hierarchies, and war?
PLEASE let me know in the comments what side of the fence these fall on- and share with your friends who might, like me, be struggling with these definitions. If you guess who the speakers are (without Googling), you win the Internet!
Please note: these quotes are slightly edited so as not to give away the speaker’s identity.
[Recounting the 2008 financial crisis] “One trillion dollars in cash or the American financial system will implode in 48 hours. The world financial system will implode in 72 hours. And in two weeks, we’ll have global anarchy and chaos. Ben Bernanke and Hank Paulson are not given to hyperbole — one billion dollars by the close of business or the American financial system, the British financial system, the EU…The Bank of Tokyo — all of it will come down in four or five days…They accomplished what Kaiser Wilhelm, the Japanese military junta and Mussolini, and Hitler..and the Soviets, Osama bin Laden …could not. Now how did that happen? It was the elites. And who’s been held accountable? Name me one banker. Name me one CEO. One law firm. One accounting firm.”
“Because of what the elites have done in the financial system, with this over leverage and increase in asset value, it’s made the Millennials and Gen Z essentially Russian serfs.”
“We are not an imperial power. We broke off from an imperial power. We are a revolutionary power.”
“The British East India Company was rapacious predatory capitalism.”
“The Five Star Movement in Italy believe in stopping crony capitalism, [and] they’re anti-corruption.”
[We must unite the Black, Hispanic and Asian working class] When we unite that, and we will unite that… we will have a political realignment like 1932 and we will govern the country for working men and women in our country, not for elites on Wall Street and not for the elites in corporate America.”
“I’m… arguing for a 44 percent tax on over 5 million dollars.”
“Fascism is worshipping the state. State capitalism combined with big government is fascism. It’s the scariest system in the world because you take all the worst elements of capitalism and you combine it with worst elements of authoritarian government. And you’ve got problems.”
“Facebook and Google should be broken up, and we should take the data and drop it down into a public trust.”
“It’s the little guy, it’s upon their shoulders it all rests and it’s their kids in the Hindu Kush, in the Persian Gulf, its their kids in the South China Sea, it’s their kids in the 38 parallel, of the 10,000 dead it’s their children. They get dissed and dismissed and haven’t had a wage increase in 35 years.”
“It is the working class who fight all the battles. The working class who make the supreme sacrifices…the working class who freely shed their blood and finish the corpses. Yet they have never had a voice in either declaring war, or making peace.”
I'm basically just a 90's democrat, which these days makes me right-wing. Listen to Bill Clinton in the 90's talking about illegal immigration, crime, meritocracy, and freedom of speech; and he sounds more like Trump than contemporary democrats.
"...more on the side of 'left,' as we typically understand it — pro-worker, pro justice, pro freedom from oppression? Or do they fall more on the 'right' — endorsing state control, racial hierarchies, and war?
It looks to me as if you've got it backwards right from the start. The right is currently more for the working class, criminal justice, and freedom from oppression. The left wants more state control, has adopted racial hierarchy as its religion ("white" being at the bottom"), and endorses widespread urban warfare in the form of BLM/Antifa terrorism.
Well that is kind of my point. As someone who grew up in and around the left, I know that their traditional POV is that *they* are the ones on the side of the working class, etc. So I'm trying to draw attention to the discrepancy between that claim/belief and the reality as I see it: that the "right" (which in history *as I was taught it* was associated with greater state control, lack of freedom) is standing up for freedom and the powerless.
I find that the left-right paradigm is too stupid, so I look at larger issues like does a person create harmony or discord. Those are more fruitful discussions in my experience.
Yes, and that is a good barometer for a personal worldview -- but how to you construct an entire communications strategy, big enough to win this information war we are living through, when your most fundamental terms do not communicate the truth of what you are saying? In that sense the terms are hugely important. There are millions of people who will immediately reject anything labelled "right wing" because they were taught -- like I was -- to associate that with Hitler, skin heads, warmongers, etc. That is a huge stumbling block.
I'm basically just a 90's democrat, which these days makes me right-wing. Listen to Bill Clinton in the 90's talking about illegal immigration, crime, meritocracy, and freedom of speech; and he sounds more like Trump than contemporary democrats.
"...more on the side of 'left,' as we typically understand it — pro-worker, pro justice, pro freedom from oppression? Or do they fall more on the 'right' — endorsing state control, racial hierarchies, and war?
It looks to me as if you've got it backwards right from the start. The right is currently more for the working class, criminal justice, and freedom from oppression. The left wants more state control, has adopted racial hierarchy as its religion ("white" being at the bottom"), and endorses widespread urban warfare in the form of BLM/Antifa terrorism.
Well that is kind of my point. As someone who grew up in and around the left, I know that their traditional POV is that *they* are the ones on the side of the working class, etc. So I'm trying to draw attention to the discrepancy between that claim/belief and the reality as I see it: that the "right" (which in history *as I was taught it* was associated with greater state control, lack of freedom) is standing up for freedom and the powerless.
I find that the left-right paradigm is too stupid, so I look at larger issues like does a person create harmony or discord. Those are more fruitful discussions in my experience.
Yes, and that is a good barometer for a personal worldview -- but how to you construct an entire communications strategy, big enough to win this information war we are living through, when your most fundamental terms do not communicate the truth of what you are saying? In that sense the terms are hugely important. There are millions of people who will immediately reject anything labelled "right wing" because they were taught -- like I was -- to associate that with Hitler, skin heads, warmongers, etc. That is a huge stumbling block.